


Secondary Properties

by Leamas



Category: SCP Foundation
Genre: Gen, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-23
Updated: 2017-09-23
Packaged: 2019-01-04 08:06:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12164877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leamas/pseuds/Leamas
Summary: Bright has not been in his body for more than a week, if that, so his conscious splits between the two hosts as the second body wraps its hand around the amulet. He sees his own shocked expression, at the same time as he watches the woman who was running down the hall a moment ago morph into himself.





	Secondary Properties

Bright has not been in his body for more than a week, if that, so his conscious splits between the two hosts as the second body wraps its hand around the amulet. He sees his own shocked expression, at the same time as he watches the woman who was running down the hall a moment ago morph into himself.

His new hand curls around the amulet, but it’s only instinct, something he feels compelled to do every time he saw 963 and didn’t have it around his neck, regardless of if his thirty days had passed. At the same time he takes a step away from himself, with the other body.

“What the fuck happened?” It’s the sound of Clef’s voice that catches Bright’s attention. With his new body he looks up at Clef, and sees him, and then looks at himself. He meets his own eyes and yanks the amulet from his own hand and holds it against himself, protectively; he watches as the body he’d just been in plummets to the floor.

“I don’t know – I don’t know,” Bright says, like a CD that keeps skipping. “I don’t know who she is, or what she – why she –”

Her body is motionless on the ground. It’s empty. The way that it keeps breathing is sacrilegious.

“Oh, Christ. You didn’t get her with the amulet, did you?” Clef says. He nudges the shoulder with a toe.

“I didn’t get her with anything,” Bright snaps. “She just ran up to me, and–”

He cuts himself off at the same time as Clef realises; Bright is not the only person who put two and two together. He and Clef aren’t even the only people standing in that corridor, and he’s aware of the body, and the junior researchers behind him, and how Clef is looking at him. He’s aware of the body he’s adopted as his, and of the amulet in his hand.

“Did she just…” one of the junior researchers standing behind him starts, bravely, but she goes silent after a moment.

There’s a moment of silence. Everyone is waiting for something to happen, and distantly Bright considers letting Clef deal with it because he understands what’s going on, but the moment passes.

“Oh my god, what the fuck?” Bright shouts. “What the fuck! What was she thinking!”

“Calm down, Jack,” Clef says incredulously; it’s a warning. Bright holds the amulet tighter in his hand, unable to form a coherent thought but also unable to shut up.

“It’s – I – I don’t know what happened. She just ran up to me, and grabbed it. I didn’t do anything, I promise I didn’t. You know that, Clef.”

“I don’t see why you would.”

Bright takes a fistful of his hair and turns away from the body. He’s already causing a scene. He already feels the eyes on him. Bright just needs to get a grip – it’s other people’s job to freak out, not his. But he thinks about what happened, about the body on the floor behind him. The last thing he’d seen on her face before it melted into his was a grim determination. She knew what she was doing.

“How could you?” Bright turns and kicks the body in the shoulder, and again in the head. “How could you? Do you know what you’ve done?”

He can’t stop kicking her. He feels himself growing hysterical but can do nothing about it. The hallway is tilting. The body moves an inch but not much more. He can’t get it away from him.

“What’s he doing?”

“Just – just leave it. Let’s go.”

“Wait, is she dead? Should we be doing something?”

“No, I… Dr Clef has this.”

“But is she dead?”

“I… no. The body isn’t–”

Bright turns on the three researchers still standing there. The calm that’s fallen over him is heavy, like a weight dropped on him.

“No, no, she’s dead. The body – this – it’s empty. It’s just waiting for me to jump inside. _Don’t touch me._ ”

He didn’t realise he was descending on the junior researchers until Clef grabbed his arm, and he’d forgotten about Clef all together until he was pulling Bright back. Bright tries to pull away from Clef and for a moment struggled genuinely, unable to stand anyone putting their hands on him, but Clef is stronger and doesn’t give a shit what Bright wants.

“She’s dead,” Clef hisses under his breath. “Get over it. Christ, do you want to make things harder for yourself?” To the junior researchers he raises a hand and shoos them away. “Come on, skedaddle. We’ll call you back if we need a statement.”

Bright doesn’t look at the body. He knows that he’s shaking and is aware of the protests he wants to make against god knows what, but to who? The body? It would be like yelling at air. When he finally turns to Clef, trying to catch the pity or disgust that he thinks should be on Clef’s face, he only sees a glimpse of concentrated, grim curiosity. This doesn’t happen every day, after all; not many of Clef’s friends are literal murder weapons.

 


End file.
